Tajikistan and Russia have entered into an agreement on joint research regarding space debris in near-Earth orbit, the Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan and the Director of the Institute of Astrophysics at the Academy, Gulchehra Kokhirova, said, TASS reports.
The agreement is expected to be ratified in both countries.
"It can be happily noted that in August 2023, this agreement was successfully signed by the government authorities of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tajikistan. Currently, the agreement is in the stage of domestic regulatory procedures, meaning that it needs to be ratified," said Kokhirova in response to a related question.
Kokhirova noted that Tajikistan anticipates that the observational potential of the observatories of the National Academy of Sciences of the country will be utilized for practical tasks carried out by Roscosmos.
This includes "monitoring near-Earth space. We would like to be involved in monitoring, for peaceful purposes, the contamination of near-Earth space with space debris to contribute to the development of strategies to mitigate potential threats from this debris, including potential collisions with operational space vehicles, as well as the reentry of this debris onto the Earth's surface," she said.
Kokhirova also mentioned that the basis for this bilateral agreement was a multilateral agreement on joint activities of the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the field of research and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, signed by the heads of government of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan on November 2, 2018, in Astana. According to her, Tajik scientists have the experience and are ready to contribute to solving the problem of the hazard posed by asteroids and meteorites.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
September 28, 2023